Monday, October 11, 2010

Harper hacks StatsCan budget

Statistics Canada is cutting five of its surveys after being told by the federal government to chop its budget by $7 million.The surveys include environmental and business statistics, and are in addition to other belt-tightening at the troubled agency.

"Harper does not like StatsCan, that's what we kept hearing," according to a longtime employee of the agency. "In particular, he does not like the analytical work we've done for years." The Prime Minister thinks of it as fodder for critics."

Harper especially did not like StatsCan after its head statistician, Munir Sheikh, quit rather than be shanghaied into pretending to approve the government's move to replace the long-form mandatory census with a voluntary survey.Statscan has also been reporting a steady decrease in crime since 1991, which doesn't exactly jibe with Harper's "if you build them, they will come" bid to stock more prisons with more Canadians.

"I was surprised they'd spent one and a half years working on it. It was a complete mess," said John Stone of Ottawa's Carleton University and a prominent member of the IPCC.Danny Harvey of U of T : "It is full of bad science and utterly downplays the serious impacts of climate change."

We will not be hearing criticism from any muzzled government-employed scientists of course as they must get cabinet minister approval before speaking in public about their own research.

There better damn well be some stink in the press today about this further gutting of Statscan..

It is so blatant -- Harper's delusions of grandeur -- and yet a lot of people still aren't getting it. (When I first saw your title, Alison, for a moment I imagined Harper learning how to hack into StatsCan computers -- you can tell where I've been spending too much time lately.)

Yesterday on Question Period, Craig Oliver interviewed ol' Ex-Lax Max Bernier. Ol' Ex-Lax Max blatantly admitted that a voluntary survey won't produce as accurate data as the mandatory long form census did/does, but basically accurate data wasn't nearly as important as the Conservative mantra of "Freedom & privacy"... Yanno, I think these programs should have Ex-Lax Max on more often & see what else comes out; what a big mouth!!

As of noon PDT today, this is the only other MSM reporting I found on this, Alison. (Basically, a more expanded CP article than the original link.) It is a holiday and prob'ly not the best time to release a "scoop" to the masses. Guess the MSM "professionals" are all busy eating their Thanksgiving bird - they do have their priorities.

I've got another bird for 'em to chew on once they finish with the turkey . . . .

One - Steve is apparently confident that he can get away with trashing Statscan w/o repercussions. Two - The other partner in the Climate Prosperity program is the Royal Canadian Geographic Society -wtf! - who have just done a big spread on it in their current issue.Three - The G&M have been running stories for the last two weeks on the "brighter side of climate change". Oh, happy Innuits in their future pineapple groves!.Four - Numbers Two and Three will deliver Number One to Steve.

If you google "climate prosperity" the term is a little older than I though. NRTEE was apparently using it in 2007: http://www.nrtee-trnee.com/eng/issues/programs/climate-prosperity/climate-prosperity-eng.php

A couple more US links using the term - I haven't looked at them in depth or seen what else google found:

Hi Holly, saw you at Deltoid and Rabett Run ;-).The term appears worldwide, including UN, for market-based solutions to dealing with climate disruption but have not found source. Reading NRTEE stuff - will get back to you. Fun fact - our new GG was first Chair of NRTEE